Black Pupils Fare Well in Suburbs

Despite some expectations to the contrary, black students who moved
from low-income areas of Chicago to predominantly white suburbs are
maintaining their grades, even though they face higher academic
standards in their new suburban schools, according to a study by
researchers at Northwestern University.

Moreover, the study found, most of the 113 black children studied
are more involved in extracurricular activities than they were in their
city schools and have experienced "surprising and noteworthy" success
in making new friends.

The students' successful adaptation to their new academic
environment was linked, the researchers suggest, to smaller classes,
special attention from teachers, and appropriate grade and
ability-level placements.

James E. Rosenbaum and Leonard S. Rubinowitz, researchers at
Northwestern's center for urban affairs and policy research, noted that
their study, released Dec. 16, is probably the first in the nation that
examines the school experiences of black children living in
predominantly white suburbs.

The study appears likely to add new fuel to the long-standing debate
over the educational benefits of integrated schools.

Housing Desegregation

The Northwestern study focuses on 113 black students and their
families who moved to Chicago suburbs between 1976 and 1983 as a result
of a landmark housing-desegregation suit, Hills v. Gautreaux. In that
case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lower-court orders that subsidized
housing be provided to blacks in white areas of Chicago and its
suburbs.

The study was based primarily on interviews with the
children--ranging in age from 6 to 16--and with the heads of their
families, all of whom are women. All of the families moved from
neighborhoods in Chicago's inner city that were more than 95 percent
black to suburban areas that were more than 97 percent white.

The black suburban families' experiences were compared with those of
a control group of 48 black families who moved from one predominantly
black low-income area of Chicago to another during the same period.

Expectations Not Confirmed

Mr. Rosenbaum and Mr. Rubinowitz said they were unable to measure
with great accuracy changes in the students' academic achievement
because there had been no opportunity to test them both before and
after they moved. But interviews with the parents led them to the
conclusion, the researchers said, that their "expectations of lower
grades and lower relative performance were not confirmed."

After an initial period of adjustment, most of the children
maintained about the same grades and levels of performance as they had
before moving, according to the study. This performance, the
researchers found, was due in part to the efforts of the suburban
teachers, who frequently went out of their way to help the children,
and in part to the significantly smaller class sizes in the suburban
schools.

In addition, one of the most important factors influencing the
students' grades, the study notes, was the fact that most of the
children were either retained in a grade for a year or placed in
lower-ability groups or special-education classes. Many of the parents
interviewed were initially critical of such placements, the report
says, but later approved of them after concluding that the suburban
schools were much more demanding than those in the city.

"They had to hold [my son] back and he had to have special tutors,"
one mother told the interviewers. "But they eventually started working
with him and now he's really doing great. ... [When they told me], the
first thing I thought was 'black' because this was the first time I had
had any trouble. ... [But when I went there and] actually saw what the
first-year kids were doing, I knew in my heart he couldn't do
that."

"I thought she was doing tremendous in schoolwork [in the city]
until we moved here," said another mother of her daughter. "Here, she
is average. She was getting the same grades in the city as here, but
academically, it was different. She's learning more here than she did
there."

The researchers also found that the parents were pleased with the
suburban schools' smaller class sizes and larger array of
extracurricular activities. Many parents cited athletic programs in
particular, because, they told the interviewers, such activities gave
their children an opportunity to excel and academic-eligibility
standards were higher than in the city schools.

In addition, expectations about4the black students' social
integration with their white peers were unduly pessimistic, Mr.
Rosenbaum and Mr. Rubinowitz reported. The researchers said they were
surprised to find that "no consistent pattern of social isolation or
exclusion emerged."

The researchers said that not all of their findings were positive,
noting, for example, that the black children "did not derive the full
benefits of the changes in [their] general environment."

"Racial differences and discrimination, as well as economic
differences and their Chicago backgrounds, seem to have placed many of
these children in a 'sub-environment' within the larger environment,"
the report says.

Racially motivated harassment on school buses, in schools, and in
neighborhoods was frequent but not routine and generally took the form
of name-calling, occasional fighting, and ostracism, the researchers
found. They also reported that they uncovered some evidence that the
frequency of such incidents tended to decline over time.

In addition, black parents expressed concern to the interviewers
about the absence of black history and culture in the suburban schools'
curricula and about the potential for their children to lose their
black identity. Some parents also reported what they considered
racially biased attitudes and actions by school administrators,
teachers, and white students.

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